


when destiny calls you, you must be strong (I may not be with you, but you've got to hold on)

by VolxdoSioda



Series: Whumptober 2018 (Complete) [18]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dad!Cor, Day 18 - Hostage, Gen, Hurt/No Comfort, Regrets, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 02:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: It isn't the boys that find Prompto in the Keep, but Cor.





	when destiny calls you, you must be strong (I may not be with you, but you've got to hold on)

Cor only hears about it through sheer chance. The capture of one of the Prince's retinue - a blond boy that the Chancellor wants caged and kept on the lowest levels of the Keep. 

Cor tears through half a dozen metal men that day, even as the sun takes longer and longer to rise, stays in the sky only half the time, and sinks even faster. He finds a human face at last, and starts putting blade to flesh.

" _Where is he?"_

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

Cor is not the emotional sort. Not since he was young and ready to fight everything in his path, when Weskham and Clarus and Regis and he all traveled as a pack, laughing and crowing and fighting their way to the Tombs of the old Kings.

He's learned better, since then. This is what he tells himself, as he breaks into the  Keep alone, as he slays countless daemons, as he opens doors and elevator shafts and goes down, down, into the depths.

Images of a small blond child, tucked behind scraps of metal playing, curled into an over-large shirt, dirt covering his body haunt him as he goes.

He's learned better, he tells himself, and thinks of a chubby blond boy he hears about years later, from Noctis. A happy ball of sunshine with a smile, and a desire to be better.

He's learned better, he tells himself, thinking of a too-skinny youth with his painful smiles and his desperate desire to keep Noctis' friendship and earn Cor's approval in the range.

"I've learned better," he whispers as he throws open yet another locked door, ready to barge further in, only to be stopped short.

There is he. Hanging on a large metal cross, wrists and legs strapped down, head lolling on his chest.

Cor runs forward.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

Prompto feels like he weighs  _nothing_ in Cor's arms as he unhooks the boy, and it feels far too much like that first meeting all over again. Cor sinks to his knees, bringing Prompto with him, cradling him like he's the most precious thing in the world. His skin is cold.

Too cold.

_No._

He reaches out, tenderly brushes limp blond hair away from closed eyes. There are dark rings beneath them, and brusies - from being manhandled? from being assaulted? - and Cor reaches for a potion subconsciously, even as he gently shakes Prompto.

"Prompto, it's time to wake up. Come along little soldier, open up your eyes."

Prompto's eyes don't open. He hangs limp in Cor's grasp, and the potion doesn't heal the wounds. So he tries another. Nothing. Another.

Cor has learned better. 

"Prompto Argentum, that's an order. Open... open your eyes, boy. Look at me." Another little shake.

He's so cold, his little soldier. So still.

Cor has not been emotional in years. Not since the tiny blond boy locked away behind bars, when he looked up at Cor like he was a God from on high come to deliver him.

He remembers a child that smiled at him for the first time over the evening campfire, who gaped up at the stars in disbelief, who shyly climbed into Cor's lap and listened with a thumb in his mouth as Cor told him stories.

He remembers a chubby boy concerned about his weight, texting him about meeting the  _Prince_ of all people, and tell him all his insecurities.  _I'm too fat, he'll never want to stay with me. He'll reject me sooner or later, just like everyone else._

He remembers his heart tumbling over itself when Prompto came before him as a skinny young man, grim and determined to stay by Noctis' side. He remembers curling his own hands over pale, thin ones that had only ever held a camera, and showing him how to shoot.

And he remembers meeting Prompto's eyes when they met last time, and the young man smiling up at him, brave even in the heart of terror. 

" _I'll keep Noctis safe, sir. No worries!"_

Cor has not been emotional in years. But he is emotional now, as he holds his son to him, cold and lifeless and far, far too late.

 _No parent should outlive their child,_  Regis had once said to him, somber in the wake of the truth about Noctis.  _The pain is too great._

And now at last, Cor understands. He understands the pain comes not just from losing Prompto, but from the regrets of things left unsaid. Prompto never remembered who saved him, who brought him to Insomnia. He never knew Cor was the one  he was speaking with over the phone during those late-night texts, where Cor would help him fumble his way through meetings with Noctis, and reassure him that he was doing fine in class. 

Prompto never understood the lessons Cor offered him were from a father to a son, not because he felt pity or because Prompto was falling behind. 

And he will never know the  pride Cor has held deep within his chest all this time, a pride Cor sobs out between gritted teeth now. 

No parent should outlive their child.

Cor knows better, now.


End file.
